Make Him Proud
by bloodyshadow1
Summary: Korra is feeling overwhelmed by the world and the massive statue of Aang, the avatar before her and a living legend isn't helping matters. This is just my interpretation of how Korra feels when she thinks about Aang, anyone else may have a different opinion. Please read and review.


I don't own anything to do with Avatar at all, it actually owns my heart so there.

Korra stood at the foot of the Avatar Aang memorial in silence as she had many times before. She was the only living soul on the island, but she was nervous and she showed it as she looked up at the bronze face of the man who cast a shadow over her entire life. As Korra looked up into Aang's metal face frozen in that defiant, determined look and didn't know how to feel, about him, about anything. Everyone she talked to who knew him in life adored Aang and remembered him fondly. From Katara the woman who saved him from the ice when they first met and a lifetime of loneliness as his wife and love. To his son Tenzin, who for all of his serious and stuffy demeanor, would drop it immediately when his father was brought up in pleasant company. Once or twice when Korra brought his father up to him Tenzin actually broke down laughing as he reminisced about his father's famous jokes. Even Lin Beifong loved Aang when she was growing up; even after she and Tenzin had their bitter split she never would allow a bad word about Aang to be spoken in her presence.

But as Korra stared up at Aang's statue she didn't think that it looked friendly or full of life like everyone said. Aang here looked like the paragon of strength and devotion to order; everything the avatar should be. Korra couldn't even look the statue in the eye for longer than a few seconds and her gaze dropped to the stone floor that made up the ground. Before him, Korra couldn't help but feel like a failure; Aang had mastered all four elements and energy bending while stopping a hundred year long war before he even turned 13. At 17 Korra couldn't perform the simplest of airbending forms or spiritual enlightenment even though she lived in times of peace and had the best teachers in the world training her. To make matters worse, Korra was constantly beaten down by everything around her in this city that Aang had created to be a paradise for all nations, as well as benders and nonbenders. She couldn't seem to make anything better; in fact every time she tried to help she only made things worse.

She tried to raise her gaze to meet the statues' eyes again and it seemed to of grown even larger with her growing doubts. When she finally felt that she was drowning under Aang's scrutinizing gaze she broke down a bit and tried to speak out in defiance. "I-I can't promise anything," she started as her defiance crumbled and tears started to fall from her eyes from frustration, "you've left kind of pretty big shoes to fill you know. But I'll try to measure up to you; I'll work harder than I ever have before to try and measure up to Aang the great, but I'm not sure if I can, so I'm just asking if you could cut me some slack as I'm learning, maybe give me some help if you can." She ended forcing herself to turn from the statue that seemed to crush her. "I guess you don't really want to talk right now, but I just thought that you should know I'm trying, I'll try and make you proud. "

The statutes face didn't change no matter how long Korra stayed and stared at it and she eventually decided to just leave feeling emptier than she had arrived. She started to get into character, of the fierce and confident avatar that everyone, except for Katara who knew better, thought she was. As she walked away from the massive monument to her predecessor she tripped and fell over flat on her face. It was the last insult that she could stand and she angrily stood up to obliterate whatever had tripped her, but nothing was there. The stone floor was perfectly level and nothing else could have tripped her, 'am I really that pathetic that I trip over nothing,' she thought to herself. However, as she thought this the wind around her started to pick up and soon was a tornado around her and she began to panic never feeling the air move like this. Somehow though, a gentle voice cut through the typhoon and reached her, "we are already proud, I'm already proud of you Avatar Korra. Just work on taking life a bit easier will you, just because you're the avatar doesn't mean that you need to take the weight of the world solely on your shoulders." The voice and wind disappeared together leaving only a lingering warm laugh that could almost be mistaken for the wind. Somehow, instinctively Korra knew that it was Aang's voice that spoke to her even though it wasn't what she expected him to sound like. She thought that he would sound gruff and commanding with a tone of authority that Tenzin seemed to have when he was in teaching mode. But instead it was warm and gently, full of life, a voice that would fit the Aang that everyone talked about. Korra left that island that day no longer feeling crushed by the statues' presence and her heart felt so much lighter, as if it was telling her that she was good enough even if she couldn't airbend.


End file.
